agille

Time flies when you’re having fun, and this decade is roaring by fast! Can you believe that we’re already halfway through the 2010’s? Well, we are. And it seems like only yesterday that Kesha’s “Tic Toc” was the #1 song on Slacker as we moved out of the “Aughts” (which is what proper English-speakers call the first decade of a century).

So much has changed–Kesha, for example, no longer uses a dollar sign to spell her name—and so much great music happened. With this in mind, we have dug into our EQ data to come up with a new station: The 100 Top Songs of the Decade (So Far). We’ve collected your skips, bans and shares to create a countdown the songs that Slacker listeners love the most. It’s a great list, spanning multiple genres…but what’s the #1 song? We’re not telling. But here some interesting things that we noticed:

Although Taylor Swift is the biggest deal in the world, two artists have more songs on the countdown. One is a guy and one is a gal…who could they be?

Beyoncé only placed one song on the entire countdown, while another pop starlet scored five!

Female artists out-number the guys, 41 to 35 (the remaining 24 songs are from bands).

The entire top 10 consists of songs from solo artists, 5 male and 5 female.

There are more songs from 2014 than any other year.

The highest ranking Hip Hop song (#11) was released a mere month ago.

If you thought that Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean or Florida Georgia Line would have the highest ranking country song, you would be wrong.

15 songs have one-word titles, two have acronyms for titles and two songs have the “F” word in the title.

Sound fascinating? We think so…check out The 100 Top Songs of the Decade (So Far) and let us know what you think.

Why on earth would Slacker build a station devoted to songs that feature a cowbell? A better question would be…why wouldn’t Slacker build a station devoted to songs that feature a cowbell?

The cowbell: an idiophone hand percussion instrument used in various styles of music, from salsa to hip hop. Named after the bells historically used by herdsmen to keep track of their livestock. Fancied by the likes of Van Halen, the Beatles, ABBA, Eminem and (most famously) Blue Oyster Cult.

It was the latter band that was featured in a classic Saturday Night Sketch in which a fictional percussionist named Gene Frankel (portrayed by Will Ferrell) is prompted by a fictional producer Bruce Dickinson (portrayed by Christopher Walked) to play “more cowbell.” Those words immediately became a catchphrase…and why would a reference to “more cowbell” become a catchphrase?

Good grief, why wouldn’t it? (Have you learned nothing from our first paragraph?)

Which brings us to the now. Music and pop culture critics Rob Tannenbaum (Rolling Stone, Playboy) and Craig Marks (Spin, Billboard) are regular contributors to Slacker and, while they were recently creating a station called 66 Pretty Much Perfect Songs, they noticed how many landmark tunes incorporated a cowbell. “What if,” they laughed, “We created a countdown of the greatest cowboy songs of all time?”

It’s filled with incredible songs, as well as a plethora of trivia about the cowbell. For example:

1904 was a breakthrough year for cowbells, marking their first appearance in music history, thanks to Austrian late-Romantic composer Gustav Mahler.

Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was originally recorded without a cowbell…it was overdubbed later.

On “99 Problems,” Jay-Z sampled the cowbell from Wilson Pickett’s “Get me Back on Time Engine #9.”

Our curators have decided that the saddest cowbell song of all time is “Gold Dust Woman” by Fleetwood Mac.

When the Beastie Boys released the single “Hey Ladies” in 1989, they sent out promotional cowbells to music writers and radio DJ’s.

When the Rolling Stones go on tour, they have a sample of the original cowbell from “Honky Tonk Woman” programmed into their keyboards.

The first cowbell song to appear on MTV was “Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy.

The most ironic cowbell appearance was on “Little Sister” by Queens of the Stoneage. When they performed it on SNL, Will Farrell came out on stage as the fictional member of Blue Oyster Cult, Gene Frankel, and he played the cowbell wearing his flared jeans.

Rob Tannenbaum has a cowbell app on his phone, which is awesome and annoying in equal measures.

And, right about now, we know exactly how you feel. You need more cowbell. You gotta have it. You have the fever…and the only prescription is Need More Cowbell: The Countdown on Slacker Radio.

Def Jam recording artist, Alessia Cara, stopped by Slacker Radio to play her first single, “Here.”

Alessia confesses, “It’s a party song, but really it’s the complete opposite of a party song. It’s absolutely me; it shouts out the person in the corner of the party, looking around uncomfortably. I feel like this song narrates what the wallflower is thinking.”

Singer-songwriter Andy Grammer has built a dedicated fan base with songs like “Keep Your Head Up” and “Honey I’m Good,” and has spent the past several years touring with artists like Natasha Bedingfield and Colbie Caillat. We sat down with Andy to create a station filled with his songs as well as music from his favorite artists, from Coldplay to Kanye to OneRepublic.

Music critics (and Gene Simmons) claim that rock is dead. Here at Slacker Radio, we call B.S. on that…and we can prove that rock is, indeed, alive and kicking.

Our fancy data scientists tirelessly agonized over our users’ listening behavior to determine the states that rock the hardest. Throw up those horns and check out our map to see if your state truly rocks.

Top 5 States That Rock:

North Dakota (Most-listened-to rock band: Five Finger Death Punch)

Maine

Iowa

West Virginia

Nebraska

Top 5 States That Rock the Least:

Hawaii (Most-listened-to rock band: Journey)

California

District of Columbia

Florida

Georgia

Keeping Rock Alive:

Whether you’re listening to your favorite rock band on Slacker or seeing them live this summer, there are plenty of ways to keep rock alive. Slacker host Fitz takes a look at what’s happening in the world of rock this summer with insider info on the best rock festivals all over the country.

We’ve stocked this station with bands who are (or are about to be) out on tour, including Five Finger Death Punch, Godsmack, Korn, Three Days Grace, and tons more.

Slacker analyzed hundreds of millions of data points to uncover how our users are engaging with rock music across our entire service. We then parsed this data based on location to identify the states within the US that most actively engaged with rock music. In the case of the top 5 most and least engaged states— we drilled further down to identify the specific artists who drove engagement based on streams, custom-station creation, “hearts”, “bans”, skips etc.

35 years ago this week, “Rock With You” from Michael Jackson was the number one song in the country. It was taken from the album “Off the Wall,” a groundbreaking departure from Jackson’s previous work with Motown and his famous brothers, fusing funk, disco, jazz and pop. It eventually became the first album by a solo artist to produce four top ten singles, and firmly established Michael Jackson as a star in his own right. Reviewing a special edition of the album in 2001, AllMusic called it “vibrant and giddily exciting, years after its release,” and we agree. Listen as much as you want to “Off the Wall” from Michael Jackson, our Album of the Week.

London producer and DJ Mark Ronson got his start DJing in the New York club scene and was immediately in demand for his eclectic sets which merged hip hop, soul and British rock. Since then he’s released three studio albums of his own, as well as producing work for everyone from Amy Winehouse to Ghostface Killah. His fourth album “Uptown Special” features guest vocals from Mystikal and even Stevie Wonder and of course the smash hit semi-title track with Bruno Mars. Listen as much as you want to “Uptown Special” from Mark Ronson, our Album of the Week.